The DE originally committed to Appalachian State back in July, but he maintained his interest in VT, visiting for the ECU game in September. He de-committed shortly afterward, and he stayed in constant contact with DL coach Charley Wiles, though Tech only offered him right before Christmas.

"He told me that him and the defensive staff have been watching me my whole senior year, and they've just been watching how great I've been doing and how dominant I've been," DeBose previously told The Key Play. "And they say that's what they've been looking for, for somebody who they want to come up and play for them at Virginia Tech and they pulled the trigger. They told me they've been watching me and they're really excited about how I play the game and how I fit their program and stuff like that."

DeBose took an official visit to Tech on Jan. 27, his final such trip after visits to his other top schools.

But he decided not to make his final decision until now so he could provide a special surprise for his mom's birthday.

"I honestly feel like this is probably my last time spending time with her for her birthday before I go off to college for the next four years, because I won't be home too much," DeBose said. "So I wanted to make it special for her before I end up going off to school."

and size- a little less wingspan and size than the five star types. But, in this scheme, this kid can play. 20 sacks, 27.5 TFLs. For a comparison (I know, not a pure apples to apples), Garbutt had 7 sacks and 7 TFLs.

You have a good eye, sir. I see Orion Martin/Darryl Tapp type written all over him. His first step isn't electric, but his leverage and ability to redirect is so good. When you add in how explosive he is with his hips to uncoil and deliver a blow, the kid could be really damn good.

Like you said, his leverage and redirect is so good... all of his movement is efficient and he never false steps. It really shows how natural of an athlete he is.

I think one of his strongest abilities is his reaction time. His reaction to the snap is about as good as it gets and it allows him to win initially pretty often. When he doesn't win right off the line he still has good hands to disengage and control blockers.

Warning: this post occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)..

A couple of things about that game...it was the first true Thursday Night game in Blacksburg. I remember running back to Pritchard after the game and everyone was so pumped. Secondly, when I think of VT those are the jerseys.

Loved Corey Moore and how fast he was off the line. The guy was 6' tall and played like a beast. Those were great days when CBF would load 8-9 in the box and dare you run and force you to throw. The D was so fast and twitchy that opposing QBs barely had time to react. Oh my, have times and styles changed.

Sweet way to end the week. Seems like a great addition for us....as well as the fact that French is really high on him and how he can work in our system....if French likey, me likey.

Also - cant give enough props to French for all the hard work he's done this week to give us mortals such valuable analysis on these recruits (and throughout the year with all his game film breakdown, etc.). I for one am much more knowledgeable about what I'm seeing on every gameday purely because of French.

Thank you, good sir. Beers are on me if we should ever cross paths.

My wife takes the kids and leaves the house while I watch my Hokie games.........nuff said

So I went to check out the Pitt message boards on the Panther Lair and WOW are they salty. After one guy accused DeBose of trying to generate "excitement and drama" (obviously he doesn't know why DeBose actually waited to commit) another guy responded with one of the dumbest things I have read in a long time when he said...

Oh yeah, I love this guy's game. Very explosive, and on every down in the highlight video he was playing like he had something to prove. And I watched DeBose's highlight video right after watching the Corey Moore "Terror Dome" video posted above.

I just watched his tape for the first time in a while, and one thing that jumps out at me is how "ambidextrous" he is. His ability to put either hand down from either DE spot is huge value-added.

Would love a French take on this - I don't recall seeing a DE on tape playing both ends so proficiently. I'm sure he'll find a side that he/Wiles favors, but his versatility feels like one part of his game that we aren't talking about enough.

He's really interested in engineering and design, so probably not. But at least if he loses interest in that he knows about GIS. He came in today and all of our engineers are out for various reasons, so we sat down and I showed him our system and what we do with it as far as data analysis and web apps. I tried not to bore him but he just wanted to learn about anything he could.

Zion stopped by today to sign his paperwork for his internship. He said he's really anxious to get to Blacksburg and start working to get on the field. He's going to need some Hilgartification, but once that takes places he's going to have some inertia behind him when he puts QBs into the dirt.

Not yet. He was just in to sign his paperwork and get a tour. HR was with him so I kept it introductory and pleasant. I did make it clear that we were happy to have him as an intern and as member of Hokie Nation. Real excited to see him in O&M.

I asked him about Narduzzi. DeBose said when it comes to non-football stuff Nardz is actually pretty cool to talk to, but he turned into a different dude when it came down close to signing day. Very high pressure trying to get early commitments from his top guys and not having enough scholarships for all of his offers, meaning if they didn't commit before other kids, they lost their spot. Recruiting is an ugly business.

We cracked up about Pitt going 0 for 3 on him, Garbutt, and Proctor. Zion assumes Nardz was pissed about that, but that's what happens when you run your process like that. VT had schollies for the taking and Pitt had 2 spots for 5 guys and it was first come first serve.

Talking to him actually opened my eyes to something I never thought about with recruiting, which was coaches pestering these kids on the phone all the time. They always want to be in the kids ear but they run out of things to talk about. And these kids just want to eat dinner, do their homework, hang out with friends, and sleep. He was glad for the whole process to be over.

Yeah, it really was, even for just the 2 minutes we talked about it while my boss stepped down the hall. I feel bad for these kids trying to make this HUGE decision that will affect the rest of their lives and here come all these grown men trying to sell you and pressure you and generally won't leave you alone.